


i get carried away (on the back of a natural disaster)

by owlvsdove



Series: soft shock [6]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Academy Era, F/M, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 22:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2524016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlvsdove/pseuds/owlvsdove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma and Fitz go to a New Year's Eve party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i get carried away (on the back of a natural disaster)

**Author's Note:**

> (...FIXED WITH PARCEL TAPE AND WITH KIDS STICKING PLASTERS. NOTHING SAYS "I MISS YOU" QUITE LIKE WAR POETRY CARVED ON YOUR DOOR WITH A STANELY KNIFE.)
> 
> This takes place a few days after part five, so read that first if you haven't already!

 

The party is in a sweet little house down the street from Fitz's, up a bit of a hill. It's pitch dark, but the house is alive and light and swelling. Mary, Fitz, and Jemma climb the hill in their party clothes. Jemma looks especially sweet, little gold dress under her little black coat, little black hat over her curls. She's freezing her ass off, just like Fitz told her she would – she won't admit it, but he can tell. She won't complain though.

They are pink flushed when they arrive, but Mary barrels past it and opens the door wide, calling to announce her presence.

There are so many people crammed into the house, and Fitz looks over to see Jemma's eyes alight at it. This is bound to be a good party.

They drop their cold weather things on the pile (an actual pile, in an alcove off the doorway) and weave their way into the throng. Mary's chatting at Christine, the hostess, and a few other women who are each holding drinks and laughing at whatever Mary's said. Fitz takes Jemma's hand and goes to hide behind his mum, like usual. He should probably try and act like a human being but he figures no one will question it. He was always the weird kid, too smart, too quiet, jetting off to uni too soon, coming back every once and while when the timing was right. Plus no one will say anything because of the funeral.

“Ah, there he is!” Christine says. She's Mum's closest friend, and she used to watch Fitz when Mary had to work.

Fitz drops Jemma's hand just in time for Christine to gather him up in big sweet arms. “Look at you!” she says.

He flushes.

“Alright, Christine?” he asks.

“We're all good here, love.” She looks past him. “And you must be Leo's girl!” Christine is the only person left on Earth who still calls him Leo. Not even his mum bothers anymore.

Jemma doesn't bat an eye, stepping forward to introduce herself. Christine sweeps her up into a hug as well.

“Now, Jemma, are you a smart one like our boy here?”

“Smarter,” Fitz pipes up before she can say anything.

“Oh, _well_. I don't know if you remember this, love,” she mentions to Fitz, arm jovially wrapped around Jemma's shoulders. “But when he was a little boy I asked him if he would ever get married. And do you know what he said?”

“I can imagine,” Jemma responds dryly.

“He said he refused to marry anyone unless they managed to be smarter than he was!”

The room group of ladies erupts into laughter. Jemma raises a cheeky eyebrow at him.

“That's funny,” she says, “I reckon I told my parents the exact same thing.”

“Well, it's a good thing you two are such a perfect pair,” Mary breaks in, voice laden with meaning, and Fitz tosses his mother a look. She knows full well it's not like that.

Or. Well. It's not _quite_ like that.

Fitz actually isn't sure _what_ it is at the moment.

Christine shoos them off to find themselves some drinks, so Fitz takes Jemma's hand again so they don't get separated as they brave the throng of people. They fight their way into the kitchen, and Fitz turns for a moment to grab them each a beer.

Of course when he turns back Jemma's taken possession of a newly opened bottle of champagne. She holds it up and cocks her head. He shrugs, ditching his bottles.

The telly's on in the living room, poised for the magic moment of 11:59, but it could not possibly be heard over the raucous music. For a group of middle-aged mums, they know how to throw a pretty good celebration.

They find a perch on the end of a couch – a single perch, so Jemma ends up on the arm rest, legs bridging over his as they pass the bottle back and forth again.

“I don't want to go back to school,” he says suddenly. Her fingers, which had been running lazily over the skin of his neck, stutter and then pick up again.

“Permanently?”

“No, I mean right now.”

“We still have a few days.”

“You're still going to fly with me, right?” She'd switched her flight a couple days ago.

“Mmhmm.”

He feels so needy, but she doesn't seem bothered.

He notices she kicked off her shoes at some point, so he squeezes her stocking-clad ankle. Her hand stutters again, and a look comes over her face that he remembers from somewhere. She clears her throat.

He hands her back the champagne.

“So,” she says after a long swig. “Who are all these people?”

“I only know some of them,” he says. He looks around. Mostly the people that live in his neighborhood, but he describes them one by one for her. Some of Mary and Christine's work friends, some people from school. Tiny little pieces of his early childhood. He's remembering more and more things as he talks. They sit there chatting for a long while.

She seems captivated, and it makes him unsteady. He's almost glad when she pulls away to find the loo, bidding him to go find more drinks in her absence. Her full focus is intense and awe-striking.

All night she's been touching him – holding his hand and resting her head and clutching at him. He wonders at it. She's been taking precious care of him for the last few days. Maybe she's tired.

The night he'd been sick, he woke up to find himself wrapped around her, and he had cursed his own unconscious actions at the time. But maybe. Care-taking is hard work, and she throws herself into it like anything else. Maybe she needs him right now. A need—a balance she has not even recognized yet.

He's thinking this over when Piper comes up, girlfriend in tow. He stands to greet her properly.

“Pi,” he says.

“Alright, Fitz?” she asks sweetly. She's a shy little thing, so unlike Christine that people are often surprised they're mother and daughter.

“Fine, yeah.”

Pi introduces her girlfriend, an amazon of a girl who's looking a little out of place but seems nice enough. Fitz wonders if he should be stern with her, like a brother might, but decides against it. He and Pi had been thrust together often as children, and since she was younger he was disastrously given the task to look after her once or twice. They bonded in his failure.

“So mum's going on about your girl. Where is she?”

Before he has the chance to dimly say _the toilet,_ Jemma's suddenly behind him, wrapping her arms tightly around his middle and resting her head on his shoulder.

“Here,” he says. “Here she is. She's here.”

Introductions go around again, and Jemma and Pi get into a conversation about something he can barely get a grasp on, too distracted by the fact that she's pressed against him in front of other people, without an excuse. She's holding on so tight. She must be feeling so needy. This _never happens_ —

“You were a horrible babysitter,” she's saying to him, and he has to double-take to catch up.

“Huh? The fire?”

“No, I was telling her about the time I got stuck in the attic,” Pi says.

“What'd you set on fire?” Jemma asks. She sounds fond. He's going to melt.

“Just a toaster! And a few plants.”

“Not surprised,” she derides.

“It was perfectly innocent!”

“You two are cute together,” Pi pipes up.

“Are we?” Jemma says without missing a beat. “I always knew Iwas cute on my own, but—”

“Bloody hell—”

“Hey, you're alright too, I suppose—”

“Oh, shut up,” he teases.

She holds his stare for a moment, lips curling.

So leans down and kisses her directly on the nose.

She jerks back in surprise.

“Okay, too cute for me, I'm out,” Pi says taking her girlfriend by the hand and walking past them. “Nice to meet you, Jemma!”

There is a long beat.

“Do you want to go outside?” she asks. She sounds a bit breathy in his ear.

He frowns. It's literally freezing out. But he shrugs and appeases her, taking her hand again and leading her up the stairs and through a guestroom to a tiny sliver of a balcony.

“Fuck, it's cold!” Jemma says as soon as they step out. He snorts.

“It's winter. In Scotland.”

“I'm well aware, thank you!”

Still, he rubs friction into her arms with his hands as they look out over the view. The night is the deep green of velvet forest fading into the black of the valley. So many secret things happening there in the vastness. It feels a shame so few people will see them.

“I don’t want to go back to school,” he murmurs.

“You said that,” she says. She’s facing him now, back against the railing.

There’s a swell of commotion in the house. Her breath is coming out in little puffs that disperse as they meet his chest.

_Three._

This is a bit stupid. This shouldn't matter. They'd kissed loads of times. This shouldn't matter.

_Two._

This feels different this feels different this feels different this feels different this feels—

_One._

He is doomed.

He had been somewhat content to live within the confines of the gray area of their relationship. But this is not so anymore. She is so precious. She is royal and fine. Her lips are spun silk, and they are finding his with a carefulness, an awareness that had not previously been there. She sees it too.

They are always so equally matched.

Anxiety takes his heart and squeezes. He can’t let go, he can’t. He holds her cheeks. They’ve been climbing towards this point for a long time now, and they’ve just now seen the three-story drop, and they’re about to rush towards some terrifying conclusion. And they can’t stop it.

They are not ready for this.

He can’t let go, though. He can’t.

They pull apart and she is speechless, so she presses her head to his chest and they both try to breathe again. He trails down her arms to hold her ice-cold hands in his, and they wait for some indication of what they should do now. How they should proceed. They are not ready. But they can’t stop.

“Fuck,” he mutters, letting it slip out unintentionally.

He can feel her shuddering a quiet, weak sort of laugh in response.

And suddenly: “ _Where are my kids?_ ” They can hear Mary hollering from inside, where the party has burst anew. “ _I need to hug my kids!_ ”

Jemma pulls away. “Your mum is a bit drunk, I think.”

“It's New Year's Eve,” he shrugs, staring through the slats of the balcony to the distant ground.

“It's New Year's Day.”

“ _Where in all of Scotland could my kids be?_ ”

“We should probably—”

“Yeah.”

Mary finds them eventually, after they emerge and have made it a safe distance from the implication of the bedroom, and she squeezes them tight, flowing a comforting stream of drunk mom epithets to their ears.

But Fitz tells her they're leaving, knowing somehow that neither one of them can return to the party after whatever strange cosmic shift took place upstairs. Mary gives him a knowing look, but he doesn't bother to give any explanation (and yeah, how exactly is he supposed to explain to his mother that he _didn't_ leave the party early to go have New Year's sex in his childhood bed with the girl he's clearly been hung up on since _day one_ ) outside of the fact that they're tired and need a break from all the people.

So quietly, they bid her goodbye and escape the party hand-in-hand. Silent worry is etched into Jemma's face as they make their way down the hill, down down down the string of light posts and pavements until they reach his house, serene and dark. He doesn't bother flipping on the light; rather he climbs the staircase slowly with her directly behind, picking her way up carefully, always hovering near touching.

She undresses without any fuss, unzipping her dress by herself and taking one of his shirts and getting into bed without speaking. He takes a little longer, trying to peel off the strangeness with his clothes. It doesn't work. He climbs in after her, and, her eyelashes brushing his cheek, they clutch each other tight until morning.

  


 


End file.
